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Blogging on about Reviews

“Blog, BLOG, Blog, blog” bleeped my phone at eight o’clock this morning, warning me I have a blog post due today. Great! I thought, only it didn’t come out an excited great but more like a sarcastic-couldn’t-I-put-any-more-angst-in-it kind of great. (Being a writer encourages the sarcastic bend I am forever struggling into straightness. I think of it as blogging on and on.)

Sometimes I ask myself why I want to be a writer, because, let’s face it, becoming a writer isn’t like becoming a doctor. Becoming a doctor involves years of schooling, pronouncing long-weird names, learning icky terms, touching icky things and learning to golf. Becoming a writer means writing poorly until one begins writing well. If well gives way to greatness and the New York Times Bestseller list; YEA!!!!! I forever console myself that any future awful reviews are not on the caliber of a malpractice suit. They are worse. They involve my fragile writer’s ego and further endanger my delicate writer’s constitution. There is no high-ticket insurance policy for that.

Which leads me to the real purpose of this blog post (aside from the fact my phone says I have to do it). Reviews. I think hard before giving a review under three stars. Under three means illiteracy and an overabundance of prideful ego in putting a name beneath the title. Three and under also means there are so many mistakes an eagle with night vision goggles couldn’t find the story. Four and five are reserved for writers telling an engaging story, editing brilliantly and honing their craft. Most of the time I give four and five star reviews. If I get past the sample (I am a Kindle Unlimited subscriber) and go on to purchase and read the rest, it is worth my time as a reader and therefore deserves four or five stars. I don’t review what I don’t finish and I try not to review based on taste alone. If it isn’t my taste, most of the time I don’t finish reading the book. I figure an unfinished book is review enough.

I console myself knowing doctors work on what has already been created while writers create from thin air.